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Swarm Robotics: Moving from Concept to Application

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Human Centred Intelligent Systems

Part of the book series: Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies ((SIST,volume 310))

Abstract

Humans have always been inspired by their environment to solve their problems. When it directly imitates the behavior of living things, it is called biomimicry. Biomimicry seeks to identify winning life strategies to apply them in our world to solve challenges. It is a practice that learns from and mimics the technique used by species alive today. Fish, birds, bats, bees, fireflies, many animals, and insects provide us with a permanent demonstration of a phenomenon as simple as it is complex and will be discussed in this reading: swarms. Swarm intelligence is a subfield of computer science that draws inspiration from the behavior of swarms to solve problems. It is possible to characterize a swarm as a structured set of individuals with limited individual capacities who offer collective intelligence to solve complex problems. Swarm robotics is an application of swarm intelligence. By applying the concept to multi-robot systems, behaviors similar to those observed in the living world are reproduced and make it possible to solve problems, propose new approaches or improve existing ones. This paper reviews the swarm robotics approach from its history to its future. First, we review several Swarm Intelligence concepts to define Swarm Robotics systems, reporting their essential qualities and features and contrasting them to generic multi-robotic systems. Then, we discuss the basic idea of swarm robotics, its important features, simulators, real-life applications, and some future ideas.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Quebec in Chicoutimi, Chicoutimi, QC, G72B1, Canada

    Baptiste Septfons & Abdellah Chehri

  2. SIRC/LaGeS-EHTP, EHTP Km 7 Route, 20230, El Jadida, Morocco

    Hasna Chaibi & Rachid Saadane

  3. Euromed Research Center, Euro-Mediterranean University, Fes 51, Piran, Morocco

    Smail Tigani

Authors
  1. Baptiste Septfons
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  2. Abdellah Chehri
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  3. Hasna Chaibi
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  4. Rachid Saadane
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  5. Smail Tigani
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baptiste Septfons .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Reutlingen University, Reutlingen, Germany

    Alfred Zimmermann

  2. KES International Research, Shoreham-by-Sea, UK

    Robert J. Howlett

  3. KES International, Selby, UK

    Lakhmi C. Jain

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Septfons, B., Chehri, A., Chaibi, H., Saadane, R., Tigani, S. (2022). Swarm Robotics: Moving from Concept to Application. In: Zimmermann, A., Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C. (eds) Human Centred Intelligent Systems. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 310. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3455-1_14

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